Tracking trends of alcohol, illicit drugs and tobacco through morbidity data.

Despite various national and provincial tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug surveys in Canada, tracking trends and patterns of use is difficult. These surveys often target specific populations and are prone to sampling or respondent bias. This article describes a feasibility study to provide alcohol-, illicit drug- and tobacco-related morbidity using hospital separation data. Hospital episodes for diseases and conditions wholly or partially attributable to alcohol, illicit drugs, and tobacco by health authority, age group, sex, and specific ICD-10 codes for British Columbia (BC) were obtained. The most responsible diagnosis statistics were combined with aetiologic fractions for each ICD-10 code to estimate the total burden of substance use by health authority. Hospital admissions attributable to alcohol and tobacco each cause approximately 3 and 5 times respectively, that attributable to illicit drugs. The on going analysis of morbidity data will be used to inform the health authorities, and to assist policy makers in creating and evaluating policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]